Someone Is Bleeding (14 page)

“I wish we could get a steak dinner,” I said, “but there’s nothing around here. I promise as soon as we get back to Santa Monica or . . . wherever we’re going,” I added as her face grew concerned. “I’ll buy you a nice, juicy sirloin.”

“You’ll make my mouth water,” she said.

I felt a little lightheaded. I blinked at her and grinned.

“Mrs. Newton,” I said.

She smiled dutifully and I poured two more glasses. One and a half really. Peggy had only drunk about half a glass.

I felt the warmth coursing my body and I had a little more pop corn. It made me thirsty. I put the bag aside because it spoiled the taste of the champagne.

The stuff worked fast. I felt as if I were floating. I put my head down on her lap and felt the bed rolling gently under me. I reached out casually and stroked her soft, swelling breast.

She tried to smile but she couldn’t.

“Baby,” I said.

I raised up and kissed her on the mouth. I felt something rising in me. A familiar sensation. Everything had been building it up through the months. And now hunger and lightheadedness were added to it. A cabin isolated. And my brain saying speciously—she’s your wife now, you can do anything to her you want. The immediate philosophy of the deluded male.

I squirmed on the bed and poured some more to drink.

“Peggy?”

‘No thanks,” she said. “Maybe we should . . . find someplace to eat.”

“There isn’t any place around here,” I said.

“Maybe up the road.”

“Honey, not now. I’m tired. I don’t want to drive again.”

“But . . .”

Her chest rose and fell with a shudder. She swallowed. But not champagne.

”Do you think Jim is . . . ?

I had my mouth over her to stop her talking about it.

“Now, never mind him,” I said. “This is our wedding night.”

“Davie.”

Her fingers in my hair were shaking.

I ran a hand over her leg.

“Davie,”
she said. I started to unbutton her robe.

“Why are you doing that?” she asked, like a timorous little girl.

“Because . . .”

Her hands held mine.

“No, Davie.” Gently pleading.

“Peggy, stop it,” I said. “What are you afraid of? Have I ever hurt you?”

“No, but . . .”

“Well, stop it, then.”

“I’m sorry. I just . . .”

I opened another button. She was staring at me, her face white and tense. She looked like some maiden about to be sacrificed to a horrible god.

“Peggy!” I said angrily.

She had her dress on under the robe.

“Davie, please don’t be angry. Don’t you see I’m . . .”

“See! See
what?”

“Davie . . .”

“What do you think marriage is, a business relationship?” I snapped pettishly. “Oh . . . for God’s sake . . .”

“Davie.”

I didn’t look at her. I had another drink. She drank another glass. We sat there in silence and we both drank. She seemed to be trying to get drunk. Relentlessly trying to lose herself so she could please me. But it seemed she couldn’t do it, as if this fear in her were embedded in her very flesh.

I don’t remember every moment. But I do remember that she took off her robe after I acted sullen. She took her dress off and lay beside me in her slip. Her motions were nervous and shaky. She kept drinking. Her lips shook. She tried to smile.

”You won’t . . . do . . . anything, will you?” she asked, quietly.

I didn’t answer. My breath was heavier. I could see the lines of her body through the silk now. A beautiful body. My lips pressed against the warm flesh of her shoulder. I remembered that night we’d gone to Ciro’s and Peggy had worn the low dress. I thought of all the times I’d wanted her. I thought of Audrey screaming into my chest. I wanted to scream too. Hunger seemed to have been converted into an ugly drive in me. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. My mind kept trying to stop me but I kept kicking it aside.

I caressed her. She shuddered.

“Davie.” A frightened little voice.

“Stop that,” I said.

I heard her throat move. I kissed her throat. She drew away. I pulled her close in what I thought was a gentle way. She drew away again and stood up.

“I think I’ll take a bath,” she said.

It sounded so obvious to me. It irritated me. I stood up quickly and stood before her. I slid my hands around her.

“No,” I said.

“I’m . . . Davie, can’t you . . .”

Her eyes like a frightened bird’s. Trapped, helpless.

“Peggy, I’m your husband.” Thick voice, uncomprehending voice.

“I know, I know but . . . you said you’d . . .”

“I just want to touch you.”

“Davie, please.”

“I just want to
touch
you.”

“Davie.”

“All I want to do is . . . touch you.”

I was lost in a fog. I kept running my hands over her. She kept backing away. I followed. I was out of my mind. I grabbed her. She squirmed out of my embrace.

“No,”
she said. More firmly now. A little fire in her eyes.

I grabbed her.

“I told you to stop it!” I said angrily and the unspent fury of the last months surged up into my voice. She tore away from me.

“You’re not going to touch me!”

“No?”

I moved toward her and she backed away. I thought about her husband. I threw the thought aside. Almost, her fright drove me on harder. I could almost understand a man wanting to take Peggy by force. She seemed the sort of woman.

She backed into the bedside table.

“Davie . . . no!”

I clutched her shoulders.

Suddenly her eyes expanded, her lips drew back as she sucked in a terrified breath. I could almost hear the scream tearing up through her throat.

That was when something managed to lance its way through the thick coating of mindless desire in me. I saw myself. I saw her. And I was doing to her what they’d all done. I was no better than any of them. And the shame of it made me turn away with tears in my eyes and a shaking hand over my eyes.

“I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m . . . sorry,” I muttered brokenly.

A sudden rushing sound. A biting pain in my right shoulder right below where the bandage ended. I jumped around with a gasp.

She was holding the icepick in her hand and staring at me, her eyes like white dotted marbles in her head, her lips pressed together into a hideous white gash.

My mouth fell open. I stared at her dumbly.

I don’t know how long we stood there without a sound. She was like a tensed animal, the icepick raised in her hand, her dark pupils boring into me.

I moved back a step then. The words seemed to come from my mouth by themselves.

“You’re
crazy,”
I said.

She still looked at me, something tight holding her together.

Then she noticed the big drops of blood running over my hand and dripping on the floor. She leaned forward a little, the berserk look fading from her face. The features relaxed. Her arm dropped.

“Davie?” she said.

“Get away from me.”

“Davie.”

“You
heard
me.”

“Davie, I didn’t stab you.”

I backed away some more.

Davie, it wasn’t you.”

‘Get
away.”

I didn’t stab at you. Davie, not at you!”

I said get away!”

I backed off in horror. And then the idea came and the breath was sucked out of me.

“You killed Albert, didn’t you?” I said.

She stopped. She looked at me blankly.

“You
killed
him, didn’t you?” I said hoarsely.

“Davie. I . . .”

“Didn’t you?”

“Davie . . .”

“You did, didn’t you!”

“What difference does it make?”

“Oh my God!” I cried. “You kill a man and you ask what difference it makes!”

“You said you could forget everything,” she said.

“Forget that you murdered a man!”

“He wasn’t a man, he was an animal!”

“He was a
man,
a man! And you killed him!”

Her throat moved. She started to tremble. She raised her hand. She saw the icepick and then threw it away with revulsion and it rolled over the floor.

“I didn’t,’” she said weakly.

“You did!”

“Yes, I . . . I killed . . . h-h-him. But . . .”

I felt myself drained in an instant. As if by some invisible vampire of the strength. I staggered back, hardly feeling the pain in my shoulder at all.

“You lied to me,” I said dizzily. “All this time you lied to me.”

“No, Davie, no,” she said miserably.

She was trying to wipe away the past. It was what she always meant. That we should forget everything, even that she had killed.

“You said what happened before didn’t matter. You said it didn’t,” she said.

“What are you?” I said. “An animal yourself? You kill a man and then you say forget it.”

“I was out of my mind. I couldn’t help it. I . . . didn’t mean to.”

“Why did you lie? Why did you lie to me?”

“Davie, don’t.” Tears were flooding down her cheeks. “I was upset. I couldn’t lose you. You’re all I have now. Don’t desert me. I need you. I
need
you.”

“And you let me think that Jim killed them,” I said.

“He had Dennis killed,” she said, “I didn’t do that. What’s the difference if he dies for one crime or two. Didn’t he
say
he killed Albert?”

He’d lied for her. I knew it suddenly. I hadn’t gotten any confession from him. He’d heard Jones out there and he’d lied once more to save Peggy.

I couldn’t get it. I just couldn’t understand it. All I could think was one thing.

“And we’re married,” I said. “We’re
married.”

Something hard gripped her features.

“Oh, that’s awful, isn’t it?” she said, her voice breaking. “That’s just horrible, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think you feel guilty at all,” I said, “I think you feel
justified
for everything you did. You think you had a
right
to kill Albert, don’t you?”

“I
did
have a right! He was a pig! He tore at my clothes and he tried to make me filthy with his own dirt! I
had
to kill him! I had to, can’t you see that!”

“No, I can’t! I can’t see it!”

Something seemed to start in her. Way down. Like a flood of hot lava surging up to the mouth of a volcano. It shook her body as it came up. It made her arms tremble at her sides, made the fingers clamp into boney fists.

It exploded in my face.

“You’re like all of them!” she yelled. “Like every damn one of them!
Defending each other!
Plotting with each other against us! Driving us into a pit! A
pit! Hurting us, brutalizing us, destroying us,
making us into tools for your filthy hands! Twisting our hopes into knots! And tearing our hearts out! You don’t care, oh, you don’t care! You’re all the same,
all
of you! You don’t care about us! You don’t care if we have minds, you don’t care if we’re sensitive, you don’t care if we’re afraid, you just
take
us! You just rip the beauty out of our lives and give us ugliness instead! And then you tell everybody what wonderful men you are, how
happy
you’ve made us! All of you—
pigs!
Get away from me you pig, you pig,
YOU PIG!”

Her blood-drained fists were crushed against her white cheeks and saliva ran from her twitching mouth. I stood there, paralyzed, looking in blank horror at a girl I’d never seen.

I didn’t even hear the door open. The first thing I knew was Peggy turning. And then I looked.

Jim.

He came across the room quickly. I couldn’t move. I watched him take off his top coat and put it over her shoulders. She tried to throw it off but, without a moment’s hesitation, he slapped her across the face. Hard. The red flared up on her cheek and she gasped and backed away.

“You’re coming with me,” he said. “Don’t argue with me. You’d better if you don’t want to be turned in. You don’t want to be executed for murder, do you?”

Her eyes on him were wide and staring. Eyes like an insane cat.

“I’m all you have now,” he said. “Your dear
David
wouldn’t lift a finger to save you now!”

His words seemed to whip her into submission. The wildness was gone. The deepest Peggy came into control. The weak Peggy, the Peggy who always needed guidance and discipline. Who could never think for herself. She looked at him like a frightened child at its parent.

“Jim, you . . .” she started, “you won’t . . . let them do . . .”

“Come on, Peggy,” he said. “How long do you think I can protect you from the world?”

She didn’t answer. She just stood by him and let him lead her to the door. I stood there bleeding and not feeling it. Staring after them helplessly. Detached from reality.

“You won’t let them, will you Jim”? she begged.

He looked at her pathetic face. He heard the lost fright in her voice. And, for the first time in his life, he showed in my sight that there was more than machinery in him.

He drew her against him and pressed his lips to her hair.

“Peggy,” he said, “oh,
Peggy.”

Only an instant. Then he raised his head and his face was hard.

“They won’t get you,” he said. “Not while I live.”

I might have been invisible standing there. The blood dripping from my finger tips onto the floor. Me watching a world slip away from me. A rootless, detached feeling. As if something I’d called my heart had been torn away leaving me hollow, a shell.

I noticed that there was somebody outside the door.

”Is there anything wrong in here?” the voice asked. “I heard shouting.”

Jim Vaughan spoke calmly, distinctly.

-This is my wife,” he said. Tm taking her away from that man in there.”

Muttering. “I knew it, I
knew
it.”

Then, at the door, Jim turned. He had his arm protectingly around Peggy’s shoulders. And for some reason, all the smugness and the meanness and the cynical detachment seemed to have gone from him.

He looked at me. And it seemed as if he felt as helpless as I did. He had tried to save her again and again. Doing everything he could, even confessing for her crime. Now, if they were fugitives, it would be Jim they sought for murder.